ILNP

The One With Some New Years Eve Nail Art

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose 


Hey everyone!!  We are almost to the end of 2020, and boy oh boy was this year a crazy ride.  While many people are saying 2020 was the worst year ever, I'm trying my best to look at the positive of the year instead of the negative.  As you know, I work in healthcare and faced numerous challenges.  Despite the challenges, struggles, and hardships, the residents at my facility remained happy, healthy, and safe.  What more could anyone ask for?  There were many lessons learned and at the end of it all, I'm a stronger person because of it all.  I truly hope that whoever is reading this looks at the negative in their life and tries to find one positive, and rise from the ashes.

Anyways, I could go on and on about that all day, but you are here to see the nails.  Today's manicure is a kitchen sink manicure for New Years Eve.  Every year I always grab my silver or gold holographics and do something fun.  To be completely honest with you, my New Years manicures are 9 times out of 10 my favorite of the whole year.  Today's design is no exception.

Let's take a look! 



Colors Used:
  • ILNP - Versailles
  • Sally Hansen - Blacky O
Two polishes, one fabulous manicure.  Each time I look at the manicure I love it even more.  The gradient using Versailles is perfect, because it's a perfect polish!  Two coats and full coverage of this gorgeous light gold holographic.  To me, this polish is the gold sister of Mega X, my favorite silver holographic polish from ILNP.   You might be seeing that polish make an appearance for my final manicure of 2020.


I just love how the pinkie and index finger turned out.  The gradient was so perfect that it looked like little fireworks or glitter bombs coming from my cuticles.  Then the laser tape design just pulls it all together.  I was going to keep my middle finger blank, but you know me and my polka dots.  I can't leave well enough alone.  Plus, it looked a little naked with everything else crazy going on with the manicure.

What do you think?  Fan of this look?

If I don't get my next post up before the New Year, I want to wish everyone who is reading this a very Happy and Blessed 2021.  End this year on a positive note.  You made it through a pandemic, you didn't let the world take you down.  Let's all make a resolution to look at the positive and find one thing each day to be grateful for.  Release all your expectations you have about 2021, and just focus on each day.  Every single day that we are given is a major blessings.  Look at it like that.  If we go into this New Year looking at the negative and having a victim mentality, then that's how we are going to perceive every day.  So instead of letting that happen, be the winner, be positive, and just kick 2020 to the curb and take 2021 by storm!  Please be happy, healthy, and safe.

And as always, thank you for sticking with me.  I know I went on some hiatuses because life got crazy, but I am so grateful for the ability to come back like I was never gone.  I love every single one of you.

Until next time, <3.




Christmas

The One With the Santa Nail Art - Merry Christmas!

9:30:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose Press Sample Affiliate Link


Good morning Polished World, and Merry Christmas!!!!  December 25th is finally here, and I successfully brought you Christmas designs the whole month.  I'm rather proud of myself for this one.  Not going to lie, I was editing the photos for this post at 11:30pm last evening.  Santa was getting impatient with me since I wasn't sleeping and he couldn't deliver the gifts.

Santa understood though when he saw what today's post is!  I feel it's been awhile since I've done a little Santa Claus nail art, but after doing the Elf ones, I felt I had to.  Not to mention, I promised my residents at work that I would have my nails matching my Santa leggings for their "party".  I use the term party loosely since you know, social distancing and small groups.  Sigh, COVID needs to go away ASAP.  Despite the small group, they had fun, and loved my nails.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • Nine Zero Lacquer - Santa Suit
  • Nine Zero Lacquer - Cat in the Christmas Tree
  • Acrylics and such
Isn't the big guy adorable?  I literally copied the design I did a few years ago because it matched the leggings so well.  While yes these are adorable, there's something about the original ones that hold a special place in my heart and I feel they look better.  Probably because my nails were in better condition than they are now and weren't constantly breaking.  Again, I blame COVID because I'm washing my hands constantly and bathing in sanitizer.


They're still adorable though.  I'm not complaining.  As always, Nine Zero Lacquer's Santa Suit is the perfect red for Christmas.  It reminds me of Say Love by ILNP except it is a tad lighter and a little more jelly-like.  Both are gorgeous, both apply wonderfully, both have holo, and both scream Christmas.  What more can you want?!

What do you think?  Loving the Santa?

Now it's time to try to do some New Years nails.  Wish me luck!!!

Hope you all have a very Merry and Blessed Christmas! 

Until next time, <3.

Christmas

The One With the Red and Green Christmas Light Manicure

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose


Good morning Polished World!!!  Happy two days before Christmas!  Can you actually believe that Christmas is right around the corner?  I feel like December flew right on by.  I blame COVID and the fact it just turns my world upside down on a daily basis.  Despite the crazy, I'm super proud of myself for completing six Christmas designs.  Looking back at the year I've had and the hiatus' I've had to take because of my job, this is a huge accomplishment.  When I started up the blog again and my nail art, I told myself that I wasn't going to go on another break for the foreseeable future.  This has been a huge stress relief for me, and we all need that escape from the real world one way or another.

Today's I'm sharing with you my annual Christmas light manicure!  This is a design I've been doing since I started blogging years ago.  Each year I switch up the design by changing the base polish.  The most common base is typically a snowy gradient, but I really wasn't feeling that this year.  Then I remembered Christmas Cookie by ILNP.  It just begged to have some Christmas lights painted on top of it. 

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • ILNP - Christmas Cookie
  • Acrylics
Super adorable, right?  I opted for the red and green lights because of the tiny red and green microglitters in this polish.  Christmas Cookie is a white jelly polish with the different color microglitters.  Two coats and I had complete coverage.  It removes off the nail just as easily as it applies.  I was worried because of the density of the glitter, but you'd have no idea that the glitter was even there.


I love, love, LOVE how the red and green lights really make those red and green glitters pop.  I wore this polish alone as a swatch a few times this season and while you could see the glitter on it's own, with the colors on top it just added a whole new dimension.

What do you think?  Fan of this manicure?

Just one more design to share with you all.  Can you guess what it is??

Until next time, <3.




Christmas

The One With the Christmas Dotticure

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose 


Good Morning Polished World!! How are you all doing today?  It's the 21st, which means Christmas is just four days away.  And I have two more manicures to share.  Well, I should have two more manicures to share.  I still need to paint my last one so maybe I'll only have one more to share.  I meant to paint last evening, but I didn't get home until late and I just did a swatch and called it a night.  Hoping tonight I can get my last design in.

Today's manicure is a simple dotticure I painted last week.  During this time of year, I fall in love with my red and green holographic polishes and I have to talk myself out of using them for every single design.  I wanted to show them off and not add too much art because I wanted the polishes themselves to shine.  So, of course a dotticure was the only solution for this.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:

  • ILNP - Say Love
  • Zoya - Merida 
  • ORLY - White Tips
How gorgeous is Say Love by ILNP!?  This is by far my favorite red nail polish.  If you've been reading this blog a while, you know I'm not a huge fan of red polishes.  I feel like they wash me out and make my nails look super short.  I don't have that nice, long, pointed nail which reds look gorgeous on.  That was until I purchased Say Love.  This polish is everything.  Two coats of this gorgeous holographic red and my nails look amazing.  Not to mention, it's a perfect Christmas red.


The Zoya scattered holographic polishes have been a win since they were all released, and Merida is no exception.  Two coats of this dark, beautiful holographic green.  It compliments Say Love so wonderfully.  Both polishes work wonderfully for nail art.  They dotted perfectly on my index and pinkie nail.  Say Love dragged a little bit when I added my top coat, but that's because my dot wasn't completely dried when I applied it.

What do you think?  Fan of this simple Christmas design?

Until next time, <3.


Christmas

The One With Buddy the Elf Nail Art!

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose 


Good morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing on this fine Wednesday?  Can you believe we are a week away from Christmas?  Seriously where did December go?  I still have more manicures to share so I really need to get my booty moving and edit the photos.  Actually, I think I have two posts and two others planned.  It seems I'm overthinking when it comes to the time frame.  I have more than enough....maybe.

Anyways, today's manicure is going down in the history books of The Little Canvas. It is inspired by one of my favorite Christmas movies; Elf!  For years I've seen other nail artists create Buddy the Elf nail art designs, I just never had the guts to go through with it on my own.  What better year to attempt it than 2020 where I have been on a major nail art hiatus and am just trying to get back into the swing of it all.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • INM - Survival of Earth
  • China Glaze - Grinchworthy
  • OPI - Exotic Birds Do Not Tweet
  • ORLY - White Tips
Isn't.this.amazing?!  I'm so proud of this nail art, and I did it all with nail polish!!!  Do you know how long it has been since I've used only nail polish to create a design?  I'm not going to lie, I was so nervous when I started this manicure, but as soon as I grabbed my tools, it was like riding a bike.  My confidence in my art came flowing right back to me.  Sure, I'm a perfectionist and I still see things looking at the photos I would have done differently, but overall I'm so proud of myself.


INM - Survival of Earth and China Glaze - Grinchworthy are the PERFECT Elf green.  I debated on leaving my pinkie finger a swatch of the INM, but I craved that little bit of glittery bling.  I'm happy I did it because I think it rounded off the manicure quite nicely.

What do you think?  Fan of this look?  Think I need to do more crazy nail art again?

Until next time, <3.  


Christmas

The One With the Christmas Holly Manicure

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose Press Sample Affiliate Link


Good Morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing on this wonderful Sunday?  Last night I did some crazy nail art which is something I haven't done in awhile and I'm so proud of it.  I cannot wait to share it with you hopefully later this week.  It felt so good to sit down and do something a little more intricate than the normal dots or flowers.  Of course it's Christmas themed, so it fits in perfectly for the month.

Anyways, enough about that manicure, onto today's design! Not going to lie, I'm super happy with how this design turned out.  Every year I do a holly design, but this year I wanted to add a little spice to it.  In my mind, spice was adding a little glitter gradient to index and pinkie finger.  I think it worked.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • Zoya - Hunter
  • Zoya - Tomoko
  • Morgan Taylor - All Tango-ed Up
  • ORLY - White Tips
It's nice doing nail art with all nail polish and no acrylics.  I think that my holly are a tad messy, but hey give a girl a break.  I've been on a hiatus for the past year almost and now am just slowly sliding back into this.  If I were to re-create this design, I would have probably made the holly a tad larger and put it on the bottom corner of the nail.  There's always next year!


Tomoko worked wonderfully for a glitter gradient.  If you have been following me awhile, then you know how much I love my OG Zoya Pixie Dust polishes.  Tomoko is by far my all time favorite.  In all the years that I've owned them, it's never crossed my mind to utilize one of them for a glitter gradient over a cream polish.  Let me tell you, it worked WONDERFULLY!  I was super impressed.  Literally one dab on the nail with the makeup sponge and it was perfect.  The photos don't do it justice.

What do you think?  Fan of the simple Christmas design?

Cannot wait to keep sharing more Christmas manicures!! 

Until next time, <3


Christmas

The One With the Minimalist Rudolph Manicure

9:00:00 AM


Good morning, Polished World! How are you all doing today?  It's Wednesday which means....UGHHH the middle of the week.  You know, that day that feels like a Thursday but in reality you still have two more days left in the work week.  Actually, with my job, there really is no end to the work week, but whatever. I like to dream that my weekends are 100% work free.

Well, regardless of a crazy work schedule, I've still managed to start my Christmas manicures!  The trick is just getting the photos edited and up on the blog and Instagram.  So far, I have created three.  It would have been four, but I wore a swatch of Christmas Cookie by ILNP for a few days and it was too pretty to take off.

Anyways, today's manicure is a cute little simplistic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer design that I found while surfing Pinterest.  I fell in love with the simplicity of it.  The original design that I found had a white three dimensional snowflake on the accent nail, but I of course opted for glitter.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • Sally Hansen - Bordeaux Glow
  • China Glaze - Big Hair and Bubbly
  • ORLY - White Tips
  • Black Acrylic 
Sally Hansen Bordeau Glow is the PERFECT Christmas red polish.  I don't know why I haven't used it until this year because I'm pretty sure I've owned this polish for awhile now.  I normally don't gravitate towards red, so when I have a few reds that I like I stick to them.  I think when I got this one, I avoided it because it looked like a frosty finish which I typically don't like.  When I found it in my drawer, I just thought it looked like the perfect Rudolph red.

After one coat of this, I fell in love.  It applied perfectly in two coats.  It had a gorgeous finish - it wasn't so much as frosted but a weird mixture of frosted and foiled....if that makes sense.  It just has such wonderful dimension and is beyond shiny.


For my little minimalist Rudolph, I took the red and made one big dot for his nose in the middle of my nail.  I then went through with a black acrylic and added the little eyes and antlers.  A coat of top coat and I really loved the look.

What do you think?  Cute Christmas design?

Until next time, <3.


FingerPaints

The One With the First Snowflake Manicure of Winter

9:00:00 AM

Nothing to Disclose


Good Morning, Polished World!  How are you all doing today?  It's December 4th, which means we are only 21 days away from Christmas.  I need to get my butt in gear and start doing some Christmas manicures!  I have a few ideas of what I want to create or re-create, it's just getting around to doing it!  Work has been crazy this week and I wore a swatch on my nails for most of the week, so that took away some of my Christmas design time.  Might sit down this weekend and bust through a few ideas....maybe do another nail art wheel?

In the meantime, today I'm sharing with you my first snowflake manicure of the season.  You know me and my love of snowflake nails, so of course I jumped right to it even though there was no snow on the ground yet.  Sure enough, the day after I painted them, we got our first snowfall of the season.

Let's take a look!


Colors Used:
  • FingerPaints - Sterling Sculpture
  • INM - Granite
  • ORLY - White Tips
At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like this color combination, but when it was all said and done, I was obsessed.  I forgot about how perfect of a silver glitter Sterling Sculpture is.  It contains large and small flecks, which you would assume would be impossible to remove, but shockingly it isn't.  Clearly glitter removal isn't difficult due to the size of the glitter or density, but the base itself which is practically gluing it to the nail.  Anyways, it's the perfect accent for this manicure blending the white into the dark grey. 


Short little nubby nails again due to a few breaks, but what can you do.  Back to square one of growing them out.  Despite them being short, I was able to get some pretty good detail with those snowflakes.  I think I need to switch up my snowflakes a bit this year.  Go for some different patterns.  We shall see.

What do you think?  Like this look?

Until next time, <3.